


River Lea

by Hopeamarsu



Category: Logan Lucky (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Amputation, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Funeral, Grief/Mourning, Hospitals, Major Character Injury, Mention of War-related Crimes, Military, Military Funeral, Missing in Action, Violence, War, Widowed, killed in action
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 04:47:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28629768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hopeamarsu/pseuds/Hopeamarsu
Summary: This story is heavily inspired by Adele's River Lea.Everybody tells me it's 'bout time that I moved onAnd I need to learn to lighten up and learn how to be youngBut my heart is a valley, it's so shallow and man madeI'm scared to death if I let you in that you'll see I'm just a fakeSometimes I feel lonely in the arms of your touchBut I know that's just me, 'cause nothing ever is enoughWhen I was a child I grew up by the River LeaThere was something in the water, now that something's in meOh I can't go back, but the reeds are growing out of my fingertipsI can't go back to the river
Relationships: Clyde Logan/Reader, Clyde Logan/You
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	1. Part 1

It’s been two years, six months and seven days since you last saw him. That early morning is burned in your mind, the first rays of the sun peeking through the glass at the airfield where you hugged _him_ goodbye, kissed _him_ on those plump lips with tears running down your cheeks as you silently begged _him_ to stay with you, not board that massive hunk of death metal the US air force called Hercules. A fitting name that.

You can still taste the salt of the tears on your lips as you close your eyes. The memory is a bit faded now, the corners of his eyes looking down at you getting a little blurry and you no longer can recall the smell of gasoline mixing with his aftershave and detergent as you burrowed into his embrace. But it is there, in your mind and never forgotten. And you grasp it with an iron grip. 

It’s been two years, three months and two days since you got the call from his superior, telling you that Army Ranger, Sergeant First Class Logan and his batallion had been shot down in enemy territory and all were assumed missing in action. You broke down in your den at the call, knees in agonizing pain as you kneeled on the floor, your legs unable to carry you for hours. It took Jimmy and Earl both to get you up and on the couch when you finally managed to call them to tell the news. 

It’s been one year, seven months and six days when that assumption turned into killed in action. The batallion had been given military funeral, empty caskets laid on the ground and the widows and mothers presented with the folded up flag. That flag was now buried amongst _his_ belongings. There was no way you’d be able to watch it anywhere in the house.

It’s been six months since your friends have started to tell you that you need to start to move on. He is not coming home and you cannot waste away in this house, wrapped up in all the memories, a ghost of your former self. They urge you to go out, meet new people, let someone in, visit that river where he used to take you on picnics. 

River Lea, the very one that runs through the West Virginia mountains. But you know you can’t go back there, even if you had grown up by that river. You can never return there, that river might as well be your blood that runs from your heart and veins to the sea. 

Jimmy comes by to see you often, to hold you in his arms as you allow yourself to break. That is the only time when you allow yourself to feel weak, in that familiar setting of a Logan man embracing you. It will never be the same, it’s a consolation prize when the real one has been ripped from your fingertips. That is what you cling to, even when these moments cause your heart to break into a valley of pain and you feel the loneliness creep in. 

Jimmy doesn’t judge you, he shares your pain. He allows you to mourn for his brother, your husband and he just takes it. He doesn’t tell you to go out, seek out human connection for which you are grateful. 

You’d rather let reeds grow from your extremities than let someone in that could see how fake you are. How hollow you really are, just a husk walking on this earth. It would only cause pain in the long run and you are out of apologies, you don’t want to hurt anyone or tell lies. You would only use their affection, their love, stain their heart to heal the pain in yours. Which will never be whole again. 

Not without _him_. 

The phone rings in the den, startling you from your thoughts, the old ringtone something you haven’t bothered to change. The acoustic version of Bob Seger’s _Comin’ Home_ , his ringtone. One of those things you stubbornly hold on to, as it reminds you of _him_. You stand up, knees slightly shaking as you approach the phone, picking it up and pressing the green button. Call from an unknown number late Sunday afternoon cannot be good. 

“Hello?” 

_“Mrs Logan?”_

“Yes, this is she. How can I help you?” 

_“My name is…”_ The name and rank escape you once you realise where the call is coming from. You suck in a breath, it feels too shallow as your lungs are seized up. _“…We would like if you could travel to Georgia, to Fort Benning as soon as possible. We have reason to believe that we have found Sargeant Logan, ma’am. And he is alive, Mrs Logan.”_


	2. Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first draft of this made me cry, you can take of that what you will.

The white door looks surprisingly normal, even if it’s non-standard in width to accommodate a hospital bed going in and out of the room behind it. There’s a big number “2” painted across the white paneling and the handle is made of some kind of steel-like substance. You need to pull it if you want to go in.

_Do you want to go in?_

That is the question you have been pondering for the last ten minutes as you’ve paced the hallway. It’s a Schrodinger’s cat -situation as you know once you step inside the room and the person _(husband? ex-husband? what is he to you, when he’s been dead for so long?)_ inside becomes real. As long as you stay in the corridor, he is both alive and dead. This is a limbo where you find yourself in, your mind running a thousand miles a minute and knees shaking with nerves. 

You’ve been briefed by his superiors the minute you stepped to the grounds of Fort Benning, in the humid Georgia air. In your previous exchanges with the military they always made you wait, but this time they were waiting for you. This felt odd and the feeling only grew as you were escorted to a meeting room with seven other people. 

They gave you an apology for the way things were handled, how they should’ve told you in person and not over the phone. How they should’ve explained things to you in more detail, how they should’ve done this and that but at point you just waved them off, eager to get this over with.

Then they launched into the official version, or so you suspected. Something about a mountain tribe, several wounds on the survivors of the attack, months of healing with the tribe, then months of gathering supplies to prepare to venture out to find civilization and then: a miraculous rescue and return to home soil.

It almost seems too good to be true, the idea that he and his team weren’t captured, tortured, burned alive for their crimes against the country they’d been fighting in. Even if that fight hadn’t been their choice. 

After the briefing and countless amounts of paperwork later, you find yourself in the corridor. Standing in front of the white door with painted number 2 on it. To go in, or not to go in. Hamlet would be proud of your pondering, you think as you choke out a watery chuckle. Your thoughts do not make any sense, but then again, nothing in this situation makes any sense. 

When he left to fight in a war, you had a husband and a loving home. Then when he didn’t come back, you were left a widow and home was no longer a home, but a house. And now, now he is back, alive and you don’t know how to make sense of any of it. The phone call, the frantic texts to Jimmy and Mellie to break the news, the crying, the overwhelming sense of irrational fear that you had felt on the flight over and now this hesitation of stepping into a room. None of it is clear.

But there is a way to make at least some sense of it and that way is through that infuriating white, normal door with number 2 painted on. That is the only way and with a final roll of your shoulders, you bite the bullet, pull on the handle, and step inside the room.

White walls, a bland linoleum floor, and a single armchair occupying the room in the corner. It’s pushed right into the wall to give the maximum amount of space to the massive bed, all stainless steel, tiny wheels, a metal railing pushed down with ugly white sheets draped over it, and sitting in the middle of it all… you see _him_. 

A sob forces itself out of your throat as you take him in; the massive man you have missed, mourned, and loved for all this time apart. You hand slaps on top of your mouth, to stop more sobs getting out and keep you from falling apart. He looks so different from the last time you saw him, but still the same. Still the same man you fell in love with all those years ago. The very same gentle giant that you stood with in front of the witnesses, both of your hands shaking as you held onto him, whom you pledged to love until the end of your days. 

At your gasp, he turns to look at you, the dark eyes full of emotions. Emotions you’d rather try not to analyze as you take stock of what’s truly changed and what stayed the same. 

He is no longer a boy, but a man, shaped by the events that were beyond anyone’s control. One look at him confirms to you one thing; that young, innocent boy that left to fight in someone else’s war is gone and the man, the veteran of said war, has seen too much and done so many things no man should ever do. Your heart breaks for that boy and for this man in front of you now. 

His hair is longer than what you are used to, those adorable ears you fell in love with are hidden from view. But he wears it well, the dark tendrils curling around his face and framing his angular face and complimenting his aquiline nose well. He looks good with long hair, you decide.

He is still tall, massive and strong with wide shoulders, though the shirt he’s wearing (a plain white T-shirt, probably from the standard selection) is a little too big on him as it hangs on his body a little awkwardly. He’s probably lost some weight and muscle mass, you muse. Not a real surprise there, after all that time in the mountains and then hiking to the city where the military rescue picked him and three of his fellow survivors from. He looks surprisingly fit considering all this. 

His lower body is hidden by the blanket, but the length of raised fabric suggests that there is nothing majorly changed on his lower torso and legs. You find yourself wondering if he has all his toes intact and the thought should be funny, but it’s not as your eyes finally rest on his left hand. Or, where his hand should be. 

Shoulder.

Arm.

Elbow.

Upper forearm.

But there is emptiness where the lower forearm should be and there is no hand to connect to it either. You can see the slight redness of the skin where the upper forearm ends, the stump looking healed with skin pulled towards the middle. It looks painful, the way the skin is stretched and the jagged lines that criss-cross the light skin. Then the missing hand imprints itself into your mind and you can only think of one thing, one thing that should be so meaningless in all this but it is not. 

“You are not wearing your wedding ring.”

It’s the first thing that you say to him, after two years, six months, a week and three days. It is absurd, the words that come out. The ring you spent a mere moment choosing together should be the farthest thing from your mind. But the memory of how it glinted when the rays of the sun touched upon the metal as you slipped it into his finger under the protective gaze of his siblings is so clear in your mind you cannot move away from it. 

“Darlin’…” His voice is raspy, from underuse or something else. It’s the familiar twang of his accent that finally breaks through your barriers and hot tears flood your cheeks in a torrent wave of emotions. You stumble towards the armchair, pressing a hand on the wall to keep you upright. In some corner of your mind you think that there shouldn’t be any tears left anymore, the amount of times you’ve cried is too large, but still, tears burn your eyes and neck as they keep flowing down your body, drenching your shirt.

“Where is it?” 

The fucking ring, why do you focus on it, you don’t know. But something deep inside you needs a thing to focus on, to make sense of that one thing in a whirlpool of things that do not make any sense. He looks down on his lap and doesn’t answer and that’s when your anger surges to the surface.

“Where THE FUCK is the ring?!?!” You scream, letting it all out. The pain, the loss, the anguish, the overpowering feeling of it all. 

“Lost it in the crash. ‘m sorry darlin’.” He mumbles, refusing to look at you. You can spy tears on his cheeks too, but at the moment you are too angry, feeling too much to try and comfort him. Normally you’d do just that, yet nothing about this is normal. You don’t have a normal anymore. You are suspended in air, only capable of looking at him, willing him to look at you. You need him to look at you, confirm that this is real. 

“Clyde Logan Logan. You will look me in the eye when I’m talking to you.” 

Dark eyes look up and you take all of it in, the naive boy that he once was and the broken man he is now. The two mixing together, emotions raw and on the surface. He’s scared, afraid, confused and relieved all at the same time. “‘m sorry, darlin’.” He repeats his words, in that soft tone of his. 

“You should be. Two years, six months, a week and three days have I waited to see you again. Two and a half fucking years, Clyde. I had to listen to the fucking three-volley salute at your funeral, for fucks sake! I hate that I know the name of that thing they do! I got a flag, a folded-up flag to take home from burying an empty casket meant to represent my husband. And all you have to say is you’re SORRY?!” 

The anger is still too loud, the emotions behind it not ready to come to the surface yet. So you let it out, let him see how much it hurt when he was gone. Not dead, just gone. Not with you. Not with Jimmy, not with Mellie, not where he belonged. Not having a picnic by River Lea, not at home. 

Unconsciously you’ve risen to your feet as you scream it all out, all the pain you feel, and you only realize it when he swings his legs down from the bed and crosses the distance between you two in three long strides. 

In a move that should make you hate him, Clyde wraps his arms around you, his right hand rubbing that special place between your shoulder blades. That place only he can find so that he can sooth you. His muscle memory is a little clumsy as he used to do this with his left hand, but already you can feel the grief rise up again, anger getting replaced. 

Up and down he soothes you tense muscles as he hums low in your ear. You want to scream more, hit him, but you can only sob and grasp at his white T-shirt. You crumble against his chest, your knees buckling once more, desperate to stay upright. 

“So sorry darlin’, ‘m so sorry ya had ta go through that. ‘m so sorry I wasn’a there. I’d do anything ta go back, undo all yer hurt.” 

He’s fully crying too, as he embraces you in his arms. The words though are clear, his voice strong and unwavering. Somehow he pulls you in tighter to his chest as he maneuvers you to sit on the bed, in his lap. He seems as reluctant as you to relinquish his hold on you. Could he have felt the same pain, the same hurt at your separation? The fire within you starts to simmer a bit more as you melt further in his embrace. 

“I love ya, darlin’.” Clyde whispers, the words too delicate, too raw, but it’s like he just knows you need to hear them. Maybe he needs to say them as well, tell you what he has been unable to for far too long. His hand runs up and down your spine, in harmony with your breathing. 

“Ah, can never apologize enough fer the pain an’ hurt, darlin’, but…” You lift your head a little and place a finger on his lips to stop his speech. Dark eyes, swimming in tears, find yours and for a moment you just look at your husband. He’s back and alive, he’s in your arms and he still loves you. The fire dies out and only love is left.

“I love you too, Clyde. So help me, I love you so much.” 

He kisses you then, the desperate press of dry lips against your chapped ones. Arms wrap around you again as Clyde pulls you in as tight as he can, cradling you in his lap. The movement is familiar, your lips like two halves of a whole finding their harmony, the warmth between them known, yet unknown at the same time. 

He kisses you like a man drowning and in a way, he is. Or maybe he is dying of thirst and you are his only nectar, the desperation in the kiss is so palpable.

You kiss him back with matching intensity, hoping to never have to come up for air, hoping to live the rest of your days attached to his lips. He tastes like stale cafeteria coffee, like old toothpaste and a hint of a cheese sandwich and it’s the best taste in the world. The tears run fast down your cheeks as you keep kissing him, your hands on his face getting wet from his tears but there is no time, no place on Earth you’d move them for. 

Clyde breaks the kiss first and hushes you as you whine softly at the separation. He huffs, pressing his forehead to you, his flesh fingers wiping your cheeks. “Darlin’…” 

You kiss him again, a soft press of lips before you draw back a little. You look at your husband, the swollen lips glistening, eyes still a little watery, hair mussed up and he’s never looked more perfect, more handsome to you. You want to tell him that but something, a small feeling, tells you not to. This is not the time. But there will be a time later after you’ve left this room. 

“Will you tell me what happened?” You need to hear it from him, the whole story without anyone glossing over it. He nods and starts to speak. 

Clyde tells you of the attack, the plane going down in the mountains. How he and three others from his battalion survived, barely. How his arm was ripped apart and stitched back together by the field medic with rudimentary first aid supplies. Days spent in a feverish haze as the others looked for help for him and themselves. The village, the mountain tribe that took them in. All the pain, the nightmares, the worry and sorrow over his missing hand, how he learned to survive with his stump. The plans to get out of the village, to seek help to return home. The weeks spent walking, all of them determined to get somewhere with a phone line. And finally, the trip home. 

When he’s done, his voice is hoarse and all tears are dried out, only the hot tracks remain. Clyde holds onto you and you lean in to press your ear to his chest, listening to his heartbeat. It is soothing, the familiar _thump-thump_ that vibrates within you and at last you feel calm as you sink deeper into him. He presses a kiss to your forehead and closes his eyes, stump curling around your waist to protect you from anything, everything


End file.
